Dylan Reeve
Forum Replies Created
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In New Zealand there is not yet any demand for HD delivery as there is no HD broadcasters. However it is on the horizon with the two major networks announcing they will be rolling out HD broadcasts from early-mid 2008. At the moment that looks likely to be 720p50 – but that is still not quite confirmed officially.
DVCPRO HD quite good uptake, although given there are only 14 DVCPRO HD decks in the country (or there was when we bought ours a couple of months ago) it’s still a little tricky. Of the DVCPRO HD – Varicam is the most widely available camera here, but it a huge pain in the ass in 25/50 framerates. The HVX is very popular here, although many people shoot DV with it.
In the more run-and-gun reality market, HDV has pretty much replaced the ubiquitous PD-150 (or 170).
However a lot of what is shot in HD here still ends up being mastered in SD to Digi for delivery – a lot never actually exists in HD beyond the acquisition.
Rumour has it that NZ has more orders for RED, per capita, than anywhere else, so that seems likely to make an impact. Already there have been 2 music videos, a small handful of TVC and a short film shot on our one and only RED (#23).
While we had a big uptake of XDCAM here, there hasn’t been much of a rush on th HD variant, and I’m not sure how many EX-1s are in the market, and I certainly haven’t heard of anyone shooting it yet, but there were a lot of approving noises from industry sorts and the Sony launch even a few months ago.
HDCAM doesn’t get a lot of work as an acquisition format here, but HDCAM SR is a fairly popular mastering format. Networks at this stage are leaning toward HDCAM and SR for delivery it seems.
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Can’t get it back to normal, best option is to make it an ‘artistic decision’ – make it black and white, or shift the colour to something that’s not the normal green and add some other visual effects. Putting a reddish colour over a greenish night shot clip will neutralise the effect somewhat, but it won’t get right.
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The ghosting is actualy motion blur in the frames – which is one of the biggest drawbacks to image stabilisation. While it’s possible to lock down the physical movement of the frame, any actual motion blur in the video will remain and instead of a moving shot with organic motion blur, you get a stable shot with unusual directional blurring.
For this reason, in the past, I’ve found sometimes it’s better to leave the shot natural if the movement is somewhat motivated (I found adding a helicopter sound to a heli shot did wonders that way once) – as the human visual magic system isn’t generally too put off by movement like that. Whereas unexplained bluring is a static shot is more off putting.
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It’s worth pointing out that there are three (maybe four, depending on how you look at it) distinct versions of XDCAM.
The original XDCAM is a optical-disc based Standard Def format. It uses DVCAM, and MPEG IMX formats. There are camera models available that support only the DVCAM mode, but most will record DVCAM or IMX at 30, 40 or 50Mb/s (the 50Mb/s is virtually indistinguishable from Digibeta).
Then there is XDCAM HD – which uses the same disc technology, but basically records HDV onto it. However taking HDV a step further it supports an increased datarate of 35Mb/s (which equates to a very significant increase of quality). I believe these cameras are still ‘industrial’ with only 1/2″ CCDs, not the 2/3″ CCDs expected in modern EFP cameras.
And the new kid in the XDCAM family is XDCAM EX – a solid-state format that records on a new memory card format from Sony and Sandisk called SxS (S-by-S). Currently there is only one camera, and support is still fairly new – although initial reports are good, and the camera is excellent (with a fantastic lens).
To complicate matters, the disc-based XDCAM formats record MXF-wrapped files, while XDCAM EX records it’s video (a variation on HDV, with a full 1920×1080 raster) in MPEG4-wrapped files.
The disc-based XDCAM formats offer a great middle-ground between tape and file-based acquisition – offering the ease of use of non-linear file access, while still being cheap enough to stick on a shelf.
I’ve not used any of them in Final Cut Pro.
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It’s much easier to make clean footage look bad than to make bad footage look good. If all else fails, at least you will have nice clean varicam footage at your finger tips and then you can play with the color correction to make the audience feel as if they were in a different environment.
That is exactly my thinking. I am very hesitant to introduce mixed formats when this ‘look’ is still in the director’s head. If we shoot 1080i50 on the Z1 or something similar (or on SD and upconvert as has also been considered) and find we don’t like the look, we’re pretty much stuck. Which is why I need a post solution.
The budget is already stretched and hiring different cameras, or having to reshoot in the event that the outcome isn’t what we hoped would be pretty much impossible.
I’ll take a good look at the reinterlacer next week.
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Production is already shooting with 2 Varicams – they don’t want to learn a new workflow.
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Walter is right – broadcaster’s specs do differ a lot.
However as you’ve said you’re planning to shop the show to various networks, you are unlikely to get a full and complete spec, and I doubt you’ll want to remaster the show for each broadcaster.
Having worked on the broadcaster side of things, I can say that most broadcasters, buying finished shows from a distributor, don’t care about the specifics of the show finishing, as long as it conforms to reasonable standards and is of good quality. Broadcaster spec guides are for show they commission, and won’t necessarily be applied to show they buy from distributors.
We were taking delivery of shows from around the world at an older job, they varied hugely, but as long as the cue sheet and ID board contained the info we needed we didn’t have many problems (one of those shows was Good Eats!)
Personally, when I’ve prepped shows for international distribution and sale, I’ve always had Start of Message at 01:00:00:00, used 10 second ad breaks, and had textless shots at the end of the program – that is a reasonable ‘average’ of the specs I’ve received from a variety of international broadcasters.
However if you’re providing on a contract to a specific broadcaster you have to meet their spec or you will be breaching the delivery contract.
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Well at least add black for commercial breaks. Most broadcasters will accept any break length if it’s well documented on cue sheets. 10 seconds is probably a good bet, or starting on the next clear minute/30sec (with at least 10 seconds black).
Make sure ID board contain all the info that people might need – this includes program aspect ratio, full run duration, audio track details, contact email/phone.
For international sales, textless elements will be required also. This should be a clean cut-to-cut version of any shot that includes program graphics over video without the graphic. Typically this is on the end of the tape, although can be supplied on a separate tape sometimes (some series I’ve worked on have a ‘textless tape’ of the textless elements for the whole series).
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It will depend on the broadcaster, but most require simply a break hole (normally 2 or 10 seconds). Some (Network Ten in Australia springs to mind) want each part to start on an even 15 second time, at least 30 seconds from the end of the last part, with a 10 second countdown/part ID.
For international sales, often breaks are removed entirely to create a single program running an unbroken 22 seconds. Broadcasters can then insert their own breaks.
If it’s for a specific broadcaster, check with them. I recently delivered to ‘Extreme Sports Channel’ and they had some quite unusual specs that I wouldn’t have met had I just guessed.
If you just want best practice, then I’d put 10 second black holes – make sure all parts are clearly labeled on an attached cue sheet – and if possible (some broadcasters require this – BBC and Discovery at least) list each part’s start time and duration on the program ID board.
I’ve delivered show to at least 10 networks worldwide, and they are all a little different, but also they will generally accept things that have been prepared to other common specifications.
Another issue is program start time – I’ve had to start programs at 01:00:00:00, 10:00:00:00 and even 00:01:30:00 – UK broadcasters and some Australian ones like 10 hour code, most others like 1 hour code, and some oddballs like to start just after 00.
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Yeah, many people look at Online as ‘button pushing’ which can be a bit demoralising. I had one Online job where I was very much seen as a monkey – and then another where my work was really respected.
With online editors doing more and more colour grading that brings a bit more ‘creativity’ into that part of the process too.